Diana Ross, Blue

In the early 1970s, Motown would try anything once. This standards collection was recorded in 1972 to capitalise on Ross's performance in the Billie Holiday biopic Lady Sings the Blues but shelved when Berry Gordy decided she should return to pop. He was probably right - this is less a lost classic than a pleasant diversion. While the great jazz singers had voices marbled with pain, Ross is as bright and clear as coloured glass, and arranger Gil Askey mostly steers her down the sunny side of the street with the likes of Cole Porter's Let's Do It. As a Motown curio, its carefree exuberance is charming; as a jazz record, it's all sparkling surface and no depth. Play her big-band romp through I Loves Ya Porgy next to the resonant melancholy of Nina Simone's version and you can tell that blue isn't really her colour.